What Happens When Safe Isn't Safe Anymore

What Happens When Safe Isn’t Safe Anymore

 

I don’t know how to write this, so I will hurry before I lose the nerve and write it quickly. When I got diagnosed, I had no choice. All the social pretending I had done my whole life fell apart and I became a new person in a split second. That wasn’t my choice. That wasn’t anybody’s choice. If I could take it back, I would! If I had known what this would bring, I never would have asked for an autism diagnosis “for funsies.” But I was tired all the time and the depression and meds weren’t explaining it away. The light and noise sensitivity were getting worse. The social fatigue was getting a lot worse. It was all coming to a boiling point, and I knew something had to give.

But I was high functioning. I wasn’t showing most of this on the outside. My husband saw that I was more tired and chalked it up to stress about the new job starting soon, which I had no reason to be anxious about. “It’s all in your head.” “It’s all in my head.” It’s all in my head. It’s all in my head. If I could just get rid of my head, then I could get rid of “it’s all in my head.”

But then the diagnosis hit. I saw behind the walls of social construct like nonbinary people probably see behind the social construct of gender identity, and I felt… alone. I didn’t know who I was pretending to be to please other people and what I genuinely liked, and this frustration of my entire life being called into question just made me want to curl up into a ball. And I got “but you’re the same person you were before”… not exactly true. “Why are you acting so autistic now?” Because I finally thought I could let down my guard around you, but I guess not, so here come the walls back up, except maybe I can’t. FUCK!!!!

I feel unsafe. I feel unsafe without my mask. It has fallen, and I don’t know how to live in a world without it. I don’t feel safe with anyone. And the one person I thought I would feel safe with doesn’t want anything to do with autism anymore, thinks I’m “too autistic,” and is frankly tired of me. I don’t blame him. I would be tired of me too. I don’t know why he hasn’t left me after all we’ve been through together.

I need my mask, and it’s not there. Yes, it’s a safety blanket, but it’s also the way I connect to the world. I can connect via text and writing, but I can’t do that with my husband! Face to face communication is just… too hard right now. And it’s not him. It’s me changing personalities overnight and expecting him to just be okay with the new me. And that’s not fair to either of us. I just don’t know what to do.

Send good vibes our way. Don’t bug him. Bug me instead. Thank you.

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